We are using Aspose tools within our custom application to create Word and PDF forms and documents to send to our members, using templates and merging data. We are permanently storing these produced documents and forms into our custom-developed enterprise document repository as either PDF’s or PNG’s. As a retirement Agency, we keep these records over the course of our members careers and retirement – nearly a lifetime – plus 5 years. There are about 15 million documents in the repository and the volume is expected to increase.
We are considering saving repository space by simply storing only the source templates and data, and reproducing the documents on-demand (on the fly by re-merging) for viewing/retrieval. Our concern is whether this will be a viable approach over time, as the underlying templates age and their versions become obsolete. Will we be able to reproduce these documents on the fly in 20-30 years? Also, does Aspose support embedding all of the information necessary in the underlying templates (fonts, etc.) so that exact reproductions will be possible?